If you are giving a graduation speech you should take your time to write a speech with your specific audience in mind that conveys a message you care about and that shows your personality! Making a worthwhile speech takes time researching, writing, editing and rehearsing, but if you put in the right effort your work will pay off and make your graduation all the more memorable. Above all, care about what you say. For example, David Foster Wallace deeply believed that school should not teach you what to think. He thought that school should teach you the freedom to decide how to think, and he gave an inspirational speech to Kenyon College in 2007 that is still being written about and talk about today. [1]

Steps

Method1

Considering the Practical Things

1

Ask about the details of the program. You should know the layout of the program, including who will be speaking before and after you. You may want to find out more about what those individuals will be talking about in their speeches. This will help you make sure you are not accidentally repeating the same message as the person who comes before or after you. For example, if he/she is talking about overcoming adversity, you may want to choose another theme.

It is often important that you thank certain individuals in your speech. This may mean the dean and special faculty, for example, so ask about how to address these individuals, including how to say their names.

2

Write a speech that appeals to everyone in your audience. Although this speech will be written from your experience and knowledge, it is important to write for your audience. Remember to write your speech that might appeal to the different groups of people who will be listening to your speech. This includes, the dean and faculty, parents, family members and friends as well as the students who are in the class.

For example, David Foster Wallace's speech he chose to talk about not getting involved in the rat race but deciding to ignore the pressure of the world that tells you you must make lots of money and buy lots of things. Even though this speech is for the students, anyone can relate to the rat race and high expectations from the world to succeed to make lots of money just to spend it all.

Write down a list of the different groups of students you might want to consider: honors students, athletes, students who know what they are doing after graduation, students who do not know what they are doing, etc. Make sure in your speech that you aren't assuming that all the students in attendance are attending college, if that is note the case.

You don’t have to make your speech generic or overly general because you are writing for to a wide audience. Pick a universal theme, and you can consider adding parts to your speech that will speak to the different groups, if you like. If your theme is broad enough, like overcoming adversity through perseverance, you don't need to worry about making it appeal to different audiences. Everyone can relate to overcoming hard times.

Make sure that your vocabulary is varied and diverse. Try not to alienate anyone in your audience. For example, if you use the word ¨benevolent" to describe your teacher, as in ¨Mr. Garcia was such a benevolent teacher¨, you can follow it up with a description that will show the meaning of the word, ¨he was always so good to us, he let us play card games in his classroom at lunch¨. [2]

3

Ask about how long your speech should be. Most graduation speeches run about ten to fifteen minutes. According to reports, twelve minutes is the optimum amount of time for a graduation speech.[3]

If your speech is for a smaller audience or for a less formal affair, you may want to ask about how long the past graduation speeches have gone. Perhaps the speech should be shorter, around five minutes or less.

Remember, too, that your speech may feel a lot longer or shorter than it actually is. If you want communicate effectively, try slowing down your speech. This might mean you will have less time to say what you want to say.

4

Find out if there are other rules for graduation speeches. As a rule, do not curse in your speech, and be careful about the anecdotes you decide to tell. For example, you may have a great story about how your class bonded during senior ditch day but this may be an inappropriate context to share that story, unless you have specific permission.

Some schools may ask you to send your graduation speech to someone who will read it first to make sure it is well developed and/or appropriate for the graduation ceremony. Additionally, you may have to practice your speech with one of the staff before the ceremony.

5

Ask about the speeches that went over well in the past. Finding out about what was considered to be a great speech may give you some insight into what the audience wants to hear. For example, if the graduates loved hearing a speech that referenced some shared experiences the class had together, find out about their milestones as a class.

For example, perhaps they dedicated a lot of time and effort as a class when they decorated a float that won a prize in a parade. You could consider incorporating that piece of information into your speech, like ¨It took me a lot of persistence and grit to get through that final term paper. However, it wasn't nearly as much work, or as much fun, as decorating that float with this class the night before the parade.¨

Do not feel compelled to replicate that speech. You can, however, use that information to help you decide what you should write about based on your own life, values and experiences.

6

Give yourself plenty of time to write, edit and rehearse your speech. You will be much more successful at giving a good speech if you take the time you need to develop your speech and practice it.

Start working at least two to three weeks before you have to give your speech.

Rehearse your speech in the place where you plan on giving it, if possible. Being familiar with the surroundings should dampen any unease or nerves.

Method2

Deciding What to Talk About

1

Brainstorm before you get started writing your speech. Get out a pad and pencil, or use your computer to open a new document and start brainstorming ideas. Writing this speech is going to be a process and brainstorming is an important part of that process. Additionally, it is helpful to verbally brainstorm with your family and friends about what to write. However, once you start the writing process, it is a much more effective to brainstorm through writing. [4]

Once you have ideas from talking to your friends or family or thinking about what you want to say start writing down experiences that match those ideas.

For example, if you were driving toward the theme that David Foster Wallace used of learning how to think instead of what to think. You might have brainstorm about a time that you decided to learn how to knit to make all of your friends and family gifts for Christmas instead of buying them gifts. Talk about how much your grandmother loved the scarf you made her and how that ended up bonding you two together. When you think back to why you care so much about making gifts instead of buying them you realize that you want to question the pressure that is put on you to spend a lot of money to buy everyone Christmas presents. That is your theme.

2

Decide on a message for your speech. Think about what you want your message to your audience to be, and write it down in one sentence. If you know what your message is, you will be able to write a more effective speech. Starting from your main idea and developing a speech from there will save you a lot of time and rewriting.

For example, I want to talk about how giving your time to volunteer work will end up making you a happier and healthier person.

Write out your most important life experiences and lessons learned, and decide what a main take away from those stories/lessons could be. For example, after working at the soup kitchen every weekend during my senior year, I learned life lessons from people I never expected to learn from. Homeless people who I saw freely give others some of their prized possessions ended up teaching me how to give freely.

Some examples of common themes in graduation speeches are: believing in/liking yourself, taking risks/putting yourself out there, failing is necessary for success, giving back helps you as an individual, being persistent pays off, being okay with not being perfect, overcoming adversity, good friendships save, and there are different paths to take through life/there is no one right answer. [5]

Giving thanks and congratulations is another style of graduation speech you can choose to write. In these graduation speeches individuals talk about all that they have come through as a class to get to graduation. They also might take more time to talk about and thank the individuals who helped them along the way.

These speeches tend to be less focused on giving advice and the individual giving the speech and more focused on the group as a whole. Listed here is a wikiHow article on writing a graduation thank you speech. [6]

3

Read and watch really good graduation speeches to get ideas for your graduation speech. If you are having a hard time getting started, research good graduation speeches and start taking notes on the way they show their main ideas. Do not become intimidated by these great speeches, instead let them inspire you to write about something you really care about.

See if you can pick out a few main themes in the graduation speech, usually it will not be very difficult to find because it will be repeated several times. Writing those down will help you see how they craft their speech around those ideas.

For example, you could take note that David Foster Wallace uses a simple metaphor to get across his main idea. He uses the metaphor of a fish being aware that he is in water as compared to a person who realizes that he is in a society that influences us to think and act. This metaphor shows us how important it is to be aware of the obvious realities of being in society that others might miss. It also how shows us how isolating it can be to be aware. #*Likewise, think about using a similar convention, for example, a short joke or a metaphor that illustrates your main point.

4

Choose a speech structure that will help you communicate your message. Below are a few common graduation speech structures that have have been used with success many times. Consider using any of the following speech structures that have been used successfully by many others. [7]

In the first speech structure, you highlight a few, typically one to four, main take-aways, or themes. You show address those ideas through personal anecdotes or nonfiction stories to impart some wisdom to the graduating class. The people who choose this structure generally feel that they have simple, yet important wisdom that might help the graduates succeed in life. For example, Steve Jobs used this structure and told just three stories about his life. The first story he told was about how he “connected the dots” in his life. [8]

In the second structure, make a list of five to ten tips that you have acquired that you give as advice to the graduating class. If you had trouble honing in on one to three themes or take-aways, this might be a good option for you. You can highlight important things that are both big and small in this kind of speech. For example, an admiral gave a speech about the ten essential life tips he learned from the Navy that including tips to both make your bed, and never, ever give up. [9]

In the third, you tell a condensed version of your life story. Go for this option if you feel like you have a very powerful personal story that illustrates some important ideas about how to be successful or how to overcome adversity. You don’t have to start with the beginning of your life, instead talk about the important things that have made you who you are. For example, music producer Jimmy Iovine used this structure and started his speech by talking about a rebuke John Landau gave him. Jon said, ¨this is not about you¨, and that advise gave Jimmy the courage to keep working when his ego was fed up. [10]

In the last speech structure, you develop one main idea as an argument and use observations from life, your personal history, etc., to support this main idea. This option is good if you are really passionate about conveying one central idea to your audience that you are entirely convinced needs to be be heard by everyone. This is perhaps the most difficult speech to write because it is much like writing an argument; your ideas need to be logical and well organized. For example, David Foster Wallace follows this structure. He makes a claim that the real value of education isn’t learning what to think but gaining the freedom to choose how to think. He stays with this theme and develops his ideas like an argument. [11]

5

Show your personality in your speech. This means that the way you write or tell stories matches your style. Showing your personality will help your audience relate to you and will help you feel more like yourself while giving the speech.

You can use humor to convey your personality. For example, Sumner Redstone, giving a speech to DeVry University, starts his speech with some self-deprecating humor that points out that people won't enjoy sitting through his speech. Redstone says that he is glad to go first in the program, and he quotes Mark Twain who recommends swallowing a frog at the start of the day to get the worst thing out of the way. Here Redstone makes himself the toad to make his audience laugh.

6

Don’t give a speech about something unless you really believe in it. Believing in what you are saying is essential to giving a good speech, don’t be afraid of writing a simple speech so long as you believe what you are saying. For example, Joan Didonato wrote her speech about ¨four little observations¨, and her first observation was as simple as ¨commit to the journey¨. [12]

Being passionate about what you are talking about will show in your delivery, as long as you practice. Speeches involve much more than the words you say, and oftentimes much more can be said through the emotions you convey when you deliver your speech. Think about all of the ways you can put emotion into a simple phrase like ¨I would die for you." A lot of meaning balances on the way you say those words.

Practice putting emotion into your speech to give it meaning. Rehearse what you will say in front of a mirror several times to see how you look, and don't be afraid to use gestures.

7

Consider the enthusiastic mood of the occasion. This is a graduation ceremony, and everyone will be excited to be graduating. Depending on the tone of your speech, you can use this excitement to your advantage by throwing in references that the audience will cheer for.

Because everyone has gone through a lot to get to this point, you may want to take a minute to genuinely congratulate them on their accomplishments.

8

Avoid cliches. Cliches may be true but they are also probably uninteresting to your audience. There are many graduation speech cliches: the future is yours, today is your day, discussing unemployment rates, and talking about how much the world has changed because of globalization and technology.

You should avoid these cliches because they have been overused, and the people in your audience will most likely not be inspired by these topics. [13]

Do not confuse universal themes for cliches. Some of the best, most powerful speeches have very simple messages. For example, giving back helps you grow as an individual. Even though this theme that has been explored before and will be explored again, the theme still rings true and bears repeating.

Method3

Going Through the Steps in the Speech Making Process

1

Organize and develop your writing into an introduction, body and conclusion. Make sure that you provide smooth transitions between each part of your speech and that each part is well developed on its own. Be patient, writing is a process, and it may take you a good amount of time and multiple revisions before you have a solid introduction, body and conclusion.

2

Repeat your main idea(s) several times throughout your speech. Make sure that you highlight your main ideas at each part, the introduction, body and conclusion of the speech. For example, in your introduction you can say, “This story is about …”. Additionally, make certain that you come back to your main idea in a way that sticks out in your conclusion.

After your speech you want people to be able to easily remember what you talked about so they can discuss what you said.

3

Have someone else edit your speech and give you feedback. Choose someone who you trust and respect, like a teacher or colleague, who is knowledgeable about writing or speech making. [14] Often you will be unable to see problems in your speech, but a knowledgeable person who gives you honest feedback will help you sort out those problems.

Send the same person your revisions each time you make a major edit.

4

Practice your speech out loud in front of others. Depending on how practiced you are at talking in front of big groups of people, you may need to plan on practicing more times. Get your family or friends together to listen to your speech, and go through the speech several times in front of them.

Make sure to practice your pacing, and slow down if you have a tendency to read quickly through your speech. Use a timer when you practice giving your speech in front a mirror or your family/friends.

Practice enough times so that you have the things you want to say internalized. This means that when you go into autopilot mode in front of an audience you will be more likely to remember because of your muscle memory. [15]

If you get stuck, look at someone you trust in the audience and breath deeply for a couple of seconds to calm yourself down while you try to collect your thoughts.